In my previous post with the help of Two Wheel Endeavor’s, Jarrett King, I successfully mounted my Mitas Ice Kings to my dirt bike rims. This week I’m going to stud my tires, with Jarrett’s help. We’ll be covering how to determine the number of screws you need, sharing Jarrett’s recommended process for studding, and providing tips and tricks to help ensure you have the best performing and longest lasting tires once they have been studded.

In today’s post Jarrett and I are primarily going to focus on mounting ice tires. Most ice tires are heavy duty, they may require an additional tire liner to be installed during the mounting process, and in general they can be difficult to work with. I’ll be working through the mounting process with Jarrett’s guidance and using his tips to ensure I don’t puncture a tube.

To best illustrate the mounting process, studding process (next week’s post), and all the knowledge Jarrett shared in our previous post, I’ll be preparing a new set of tires. Jarrett will continue to chime in with (much needed) guidance and commentary. We’ll get into more detail on why things are done in a specific way, and share examples of tire builds that you can use as a reference.

My first set of ice tires was a Bridgestone front and Kenda rear combo built by Jeff Fredette. I liked the Bridgestone front, but have had some trouble maintaining traction with the Kenda rear on anything but clean ice. I decided this year that I wanted to try something new and after talking with Jarrett, I was sold on the Mitas Ice Kings. Full disclosure, I am not an affiliate of Mitas Ice King Tires, I just love their product. To me, the Mitas ice tires are advantageous for a number of reasons. First, they were designed for the ice and have a rubber compound that was specifically made for cold weather riding. Second, the tires don’t require any internal tire liners, which simplifies the mounting process and may save a little weight. Third, the tread pattern was designed to work in conditions where the ice isn’t perfectly clean. Finally, since the tires were designed knowing that screws would be installed, the tires are also more tolerant of being screwed into. This results in a longer lasting tire. Needless to say, the following walkthroughs on mounting and studding will feature a set of the Mitas Ice Kings

In today’s post I’m going to get into the details related to tire studding with the help of an industry expert. To help bring you the best information I can on studding ice tires, I’ve enlisted Jarrett King of Two Wheel Endeavors to help with this article. For those of you that don’t know, Two Wheel Endeavours is heavily involved in supporting Canadian ice racing efforts and offers studded tires, ice racing accessories, and custom ice solutions. Jarrett was involved in the development of the Mitas Ice King tires, knows his craft, and brings a lot of knowledge to the table.

We're pretty excited up in the North that the lakes are frozen over. That means we can get the ice bikes out and start the winter riding season! We shot a short film over the holiday weekend detailing one of the two days we were out riding. I hope it makes you consider getting into the sport of ice riding or racing, because it's freaking awesome.